The San Francisco Young Democrats held a public forum on October 14, 2009, on proposals to write a new Constitution for California. The meeting was chaired by California Assemblymember Fiona Ma, who asked the panel to comment on the “top-two” ballot measure that will be on the California ballot in June, 2010. Here is a link to a Youtube for that part of the program. It lasts six minutes and 18 seconds.

Speaking moderately in favor of “top-two” was Matt Regan, Director of Government Relations, Bay Area Council. Speaking against it are Blair Bobier of the New America Foundation, and Robert Cruikshank, Public Policy Director of the Courage Campaign. Thanks to Blair Bobier for the link.

One of the problems with public discussion of the California issue is that people in favor of the measure generally refer to it as the “open primary”, whereas opponents refuse to use that label, because in traditional political science usage, and in past U.S. Supreme Court decisions, “open primary” means a system in which each party has its own primary, whereas under “top-two”, there are no party nominees.

The Daily Herald, a newspaper in Arlington Heights, Illinois, has this article about a Democratic Party-connected challenge to the Green Party’s candidate for U.S. House in the 14th district. The article notes that the Green candidate’s petition is being defended by Free and Equal, the ballot access organization created by Christina Tobin.

On November 20, California elections officials announced that the petition to recall Assemblymember Anthony Adams does not have enough valid signatures. The petition needed 35,825 valid signatures (12% of the vote cast in the district for Governor in 2006). Although recall proponents submitted 58,384, a random sample shows that only 24,579 signatures are valid, a validity rate of only 42.1%.

The recall effort was launched by a group that was angry at Adams for voting for certain tax increases earlier this year. Adams is a Republican representing the 59th district, which is mostly in San Bernardino County, and partly in Los Angeles County.

The National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws has existed since the 19th century. It proposes model laws to the state legislatures of all states. The Commission has been meeting this year to work on a proposed model law on how to stop presidential electors from voting for presidential or vice-presidential candidates who vote for someone in the electoral college who was not their party’s choice.

The next meeting is in Chicago, December 4 and December 5. It is at the Hotel Sax, 333 N. Dearborn St., and is open to the public. The meetings are Friday, Dec. 4, 9 a.m. thru 5 p.m., and Saturday, 8:30 a.m. thru 3 p.m. The original model bill has been modified since the last meeting. One of the most interesting revisions is to provide that if the presidential nominee of a party dies after November ballots are printed, but before the electoral college meets in mid-December, the electors must vote for their party’s vice-presidential nominee. If they don’t, they are deemed to have resigned and will be replaced by their alternate. The model law provides that states would elect alternate presidential electors to replace presidential electors who vote “disobediently.”

On November 13, a South Dakota Circuit Court Judge ruled that petition signatures are valid if the signer is not on the list of active registered voters, but is on the list of inactive voters. Inactive voters are those who once registered to vote, but whose registration is considered questionable because the post office reported that the voter had moved and that voter has not re-registered. The judge, Kathleen Trandahl, also ruled that petition sheets are valid even if the notary public who notarized that sheet makes errors in his or her notarization statement, such as putting an incorrect date on when the notary’s seal expires. The case is Trucano v Nelson, 32-cv-09-306. See this story.

It is possible the state will appeal. UPDATE: on November 20, the state decided not to appeal. The case arose because the state had rejected a referendum petition. The 2009 session of the legislature had passed a bill to ban smoking in bars and casinos. Opponents of that new law had then submitted a petition to call for a public vote, which will be held in November 2010.

Kent, Ohio, uses partisan city elections. At the November 3, 2009 election for Mayor, independent candidate Jerry Fiala and Democratic nominee Rick Hawksley ended up in a tie. On November 20, the election was resolved with a toss of a coin. See this story.

Briefs are being filed in the Indiana Supreme Court in the case League of Women Voters v Rokita, over whether the Indiana law requiring voters to show government photo-ID at the polls violates the Indiana Constitution. On September 17, the Indiana State Court of Appeals had invalidated the law, so now the Indiana Supreme Court will have the last word.

Amicus curiae briefs against the law have been filed by the ACLU, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the national League of Women Voters, the American Association of Retired Persons, and the National Senior Citizens Law Center. Also, six political science professors have filed a brief against the law, and another brief was filed by two history professors and a law professor. The role of the history professors is to shed light on the intent of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention that wrote Indiana’s Constitution.

No amicus brief was filed in support of the law. All these briefs may be read at the Moritz Law web page, at this link.

On November 17, California held the first round in an election to fill the vacant 72nd Assembly seat. The results: Chris Norby, Republican, 37.23%; John MacMurray, Democratic, 27.05%; Linda Ackerman, Republican, 19.67%; Richard Faher, Republican, 13.22%; Jane Rands, Green, 2.83%.

Although the Green Party member’s showing, 2.83%, is not particularly good for a general election, it is very good for the first round in any blanket primary. California uses blanket primary rules for all its partisan special elections, which means that the final round includes the top vote-getter from each party. Normally, in the first round, minor parties in this type of election do very badly. That is because the great majority of voters are more interested in helping determine which major party member will advance to the run-off.

For example, in the September 2009 special election for U.S. House in California’s 10th district, the Green Party member got .51%; the American Independent Party member got .29%; the Peace & Freedom Party member got .25%. But, in the final round in that U.S. House election, the Green got 1.83%; Peace & Freedom got 1.34%; and American Independent got 1.15%. In other words, the minor party vote typically increases four-fold between the first round and the run-off. Thus, it seems somewhat likely that in the January 2010 run-off in the 72nd Assembly district, the Green Party candidate, Jane Rands, wikll get 10% or more.

This news is not directly related to election law, but it is being posted because it concerns Ron Paul, who has been the leading champion in Congress for ballot access reform for the last ten years. On November 19, the contents of Ron Paul’s HR 1207 were amended into the Financial Regulatory Reform bill of the House Committee on Financial Services. HR 1207 provides that the GAO should audit the Federal Reserve. Paul’s co-author for this bill, Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Florida), is vice-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Paul has been working for an audit of the Federal Reserve for approximately twenty years. Thanks to Thomas Jones for this news. See this story.

A Rasmussen Poll released on November 19 shows that if the election for Governor of California were being held now, no candidate has a majority, assuming the Democratic nominee is Jerry Brown and that the Republican nominee is Meg Whitman. The results are: Brown 41%, Whitman 41%, other 3%, undecided 14%. See here for more details.